vn The Teaman Provinces 87

Sicily ; and all the framework of government employed by
the Hellenistic kings was retained by the Romans. Here too
the praetor took the place of the king; here too the royal
decrees and laws were included by the praetor in his ' edict',
which had the force of law, and in which he laid down the
rules by which he would govern the people. Here too the
praetor was the supreme judge and gave sentence in cases
where the provincials were dissatisfied with the decrees of
their own local courts. And here too certain cities, which
had formerly been allied with Rome, still retained their
status as allies and were not formally included in the province.
The same line of action was followed exactly, when the
territory of Carthage was converted into a province : certain
Phoenician cities on the coast, which had betrayed Carthage
and formed an alliance with Rome during the third Punic
war, continued to be Roman allies even after the province of
Africa came into existence.

Thus from the end of the second century B. c. we find
a complex scheme of government which may be described as
follows. Rome and the Italian allies formed as before the
nucleus of the state. But the Roman alliance had been
extended. There were new allies, and a considerable number
of them, outside the boundaries of Italy. Many of these
were domiciled in countries which were reckoned as Roman
provinces, and in which the military and civil authority of
the Roman praetor was absolute. It is therefore not sur-
prising that these allies were hardly distinguishable from
subjects, and that the Roman tendency was to degrade them
to that rank rather than to raise the subjects to the rank of
allies. The same tendency governed the relation of Rome
towards those friends and allies who were still reckoned as;
independent political units—for instance, the cities in Greece
and some of the Greek islands, and in some parts of Asia
Minor which had never been included either in the Roman
province of Asia or in any of the still surviving Hellenistic
kingdoms. In name these cities were independent states, but
in reality their position differed little from that of allied
cities whose territory formed part of a Roman province. To
both alike Rome issued her commands; and she generally
did so not directly but through the governor of the nearest
province : thus the praetor of Macedonia dealt with Greece,
and the praetor at Pergamum with Asia Minor.